Ever since Geraldine Ferraro was released from whatever cryogenic tube was housing her lizard brain and propensity for verbal diarrhea, people of allraces and genders have suggested that some sort of cork be placed in her word-hole to prevent her embarrassing herself further.

Today, DNC Chair Howard Dean went a long way to making this happen. Responding to Ferraro's recent natterings in the Boston Globe, Dean wrested the conversation on sexism in the 2008 campaign away from Ferraro and placed it in his own hands, and refocused the ire away from the Obama campaign to where it actually belonged: the media. Perhaps most of all, he basically closed the door on any further suggestion that the primary season results can be construed as anything other than the primary season results: "...there's two issues here. One is one candidate is ahead and one is not. That happens all the time in primaries, and you get over that. What you don't get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on somebody because they happen to be a woman running for President of the United States."

Watching Dean today, by the way, one got a real impression that now that the Florida/Michigan matter is behind him, that old Dean confidence was on the rebound.

[WATCH.]

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring up another point on unifying the party. Geraldine Ferraro wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe this week where she talked about the persistent -- what she's saying is sexism -- in the party and the difficulty that Barack Obama is going to have winning over Reagan democrats. Let me show -- here's a portion of what she wrote. She said that "Reagan democrats see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black. They're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that's driving them, it's racial resentment, and that is in force because they don't believe he understands them and their problems." She's talking about a deep breach. What does Senator Obama --

DEAN: Well, first of all, I'm not going to respond to Senator -- I mean to Geraldine Ferraro's views on race because I think they have been outside the mainstream and unhelpful. But I will respond --

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you are responding to them.

DEAN: No, but I will respond to something she said on sexism. There has been enormous amount of sexism in this campaign on the part of the media, including the mainstream media. We'll leave present company excepted because I think that's true. But there have been major networks that have featured numerous outrageous comments that if the words were reversed and they were about race the people would have been fired. So that's a big issue. And there are a lot of women in this country who -- there's two issues here. One is one candidate is ahead and one is not. That happens all the time in primaries, and you get over that. What you don't get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on somebody because they happen to be a woman running for President of the United States.